WOOL CONTENT? OR DESPERATE MOTH?

Mixing a batch of cookies in my mother’s kitchen one day years ago, I found a moth larvae sitting on top of the soda box. “Hmmph!” said Mother; “he must have been desperate!” (Of course, she was alluding to the fact that you usually find moth larvae in flour, not soda.)

I thought of that again when I started working on the “Challis” coverlet, so called because I started it in 1985 when we spent a summer in Challis, Idaho, while Mike worked at the bank there. I wanted a simple project – something just to keep my hands busy – so I settled on a scrap afghan made of small granny squares. I took my own yarn scraps as well as begging some from Mother. I used a hodgepodge of yarn varieties, the only criteria being that the yarn had to be scraps. Only the black edging yarn could be purchased new. In the end I didn’t have enough for even a small coverlet, so it’s been a long-term project and not one I’m especially proud of. Now and then I get it out, make more squares, sew some together, and put it away again. But with this last time out, I discovered some squares had been nibbled – moth eaten. And thinking of that moth on the soda box, I wondered if it was desperate enough to eat synthetic fiber or – more likely – was there wool in some of those scraps?

So, yes, I identified the yarn in question – two shades of rosy pink – and pulled all loose squares in those colors from the pile. Then I removed any squares of that yarn from the coverlet in progress. That was a little difficult but not impossible and I did it successfully.

I’ll finish that coverlet some day. I think it would be quite nice draped over a chaise on the porch. KW